The Battle For Brittas Empire – Will it come back?

Many people have been asking me if I know what’s going on with the Brittas Empire reboot and if it is still happening.
The short answer is: We hope so.

For the long answer and to explain what’s been happening so far and how I got involved, I’m taking you on a journey back to the 1990’s.

You see; The Brittas Empire has so many good, and strange, memories for me. This show (and Red Dwarf) sparked my interest, not only in British Comedy, but also psychology and inspired me to study it. The usage of actual psychological research is very cleverly weaved into the storylines to explain the characters and their behaviour. TV shows so very well researched, written and performed are hard to come by these days.
My strangest memory of the show is something I’ll never forget. It was the day my grandmother died. We had spent all night in the hospital and when we returned home my mother and I just looked at the time, each other and said: “Brittas Empire is starting”. We sat down and watched the show. If my memory serves me right the episode was “Shall We Dance”.

It was a difficult time in general back then for me and, I don’t know if he was ever meant to, but; Gordon Brittas actually inspired me. I was facing bullying and depression and some of the things he said helped me in various ways. I think it is testament of the brilliance of a TV show and it’s cast if it can inspire a person and Brittas Empire certainly did. And with that, back to the present.

So, knowing how much the show means to me, you can imagine that I jumped at the chance when the lovely Jane Norriss the wife of Andrew Norriss said she liked some of the ideas I had for the Brittas reboot and suggested I’d write a script.

I finished the first draft of the script as well as synopsis of six further episodes back in April. The story would be both a fresh start as well as a continuation with a mixture of old and new faces.

With this finished I begun to contact those involved.

Talking to Chris Barrie’s manager we stumbled on a problem: He told us that for the script to be even read by any in the industry, we’d need permission from not only Andrew Norriss but also Richard Fegen. And this is where we’ve been stuck ever since: so far he has not responded to any of our e-mails. Several insiders have said that most attempts for a reboot failed at this hurdle.